In an interview that aired on a Spanish language station in Miami, President Obama made the incredibly naive statement that Hugo Chavez doesn’t pose a threat to the United States.

Oscar Haza, a well known Miami Spanish-language broadcast journalist and anchor, scored an interview this week in Washington with President Barack Obama in which Obama said Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez has not posed a “serious” national security threat to the United States…

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Then, Haza asked about the alliance between Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez and Iran.

“We’re always concerned about Iran engaging in destabilizing activity around the globe. But overall my sense is that what Mr. Chávez has done over the last several years has not had a serious national security impact on us,” Obama said. “We have to vigilant. My main concern when it comes to Venezuela is having the Venezuelan people have a voice in their affairs, and that you end up ultimately having fair and free elections, which we don’t always see.”

Here is Rubio’s full statement: “It’s now disturbingly clear that President Obama has been living under a rock when it comes to recognizing the national security threat posed by Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez.

“Hugo Chavez is not only a threat to the Venezuelan people’s freedom and democratic aspirations, he has also supported Iran’s regime in its attempts to expand its intelligence network throughout the hemisphere, facilitated money laundering activities that finance state sponsors of terrorism and provided a safe haven for FARC narco-terrorists, among many other actions.

“Just yesterday, the Wall Street Journal detailed how Hugo Chavez circumvents U.S. and EU sanctions to help prop up the Assad regime in Syria. And even Obama’s own State Department belatedly but rightly expelled Chavez’s consul general in Miami for her ties to a plan to wage cyber-attacks on the U.S.

“President Obama continues to display an alarmingly naïve understanding of the challenges and opportunities we face in the Western Hemisphere.”

Why do the world’s most significant dictators get the “never mind the man behind the curtain” treatment from our government?